Vehicle door latch systems are well known in the art. Typically, a vehicle hood or trunk deck will have a latch for engaging and cinching onto a striker. The latch will have a rotatably mounted detent fork engaging a pawl in a ratchet relation. The detent fork cooperates with a mouth of the housing to pivot between an open and closed condition for receiving, engaging and cinching a keeper of a striker. The detent fork has a cam surface having abutment surfaces. As the detent fork engages the keeper of a striker, the detent fork rotates in a latching sense and the pawl travels along the cam surface to retain the detent fork in the closed and cinched conditions.
To release the latch, the pawl is rotated to disengage the detent fork. The pawl must overcome the frictional engagement between the pawl and the detent fork. Additionally, the pawl must counter-rotate the detent fork before the pawl becomes disengaged. The amount of effort required to release the detent fork is thus proportional to the size of the spring which biases the detent fork and the length of the lever arm of the pawl.
The lever arm of the pawl can be lengthened in order to minimize the effort. However, the throw of the release handle is also increased or will require additional linkages to operate, both of which may not be desirable. Alternatively, the strength of the spring could be reduced to meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) minimum.